


Possession of Value

by tei



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:26:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14836001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tei/pseuds/tei
Summary: “Both lure and prize,” Sherlock murmured. “I was right. Oh,brilliant.”Mycroft and Sherlock play a game.





	Possession of Value

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the spring 2018 round of come_at_once, for the prompt "stolen."
> 
> Contains underage Holmescest and mostly-benign kidnapping, but mostly Sherlock/John.

**Holmes family estate, 1990**

His microscope was missing. 

Sherlock Holmes, fourteen as of three days ago and already planning tweaks and improvements for some of the more irritating features of the new microscope that had been his birthday gift, cast suspicious eyes around his bedroom. It had been locked, and the key had never left his pocket; he pulled out a flashlight and inspected the lock. Sure enough, he could see minuscule scratches on the plug. It was a simplistic lock, and he had been begging Mummy for a new one for years, but she had answered— infuriatingly reasonably— that both he and Mycroft were perfectly capable of picking the locks to each others’ bedrooms, and if they upgraded the locks, both would soon improve their skills to match; so really the whole point of a lock was not to keep the other out, but instead to indicate that it would be considered rude to enter, for which purpose the current locks were perfectly adequate. 

He was just about to enter the room and make a more thorough study of the carpet and desk when he heard the main—and only— suspect ascending the stairs. 

He rounded on Mycroft. “What did you do with it?”

Mycroft smirked, his stupid shit-eating grin that seemed to switch off automatically as soon as they exited the house, and had been making appearances less and less the more time Mycroft spent with his prefect friends, but still showed itself every so often when he’d gotten one up on Sherlock. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “I know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to endanger it. The question was, _where?_ ”

The grin stayed put. “Now where would be the fun in that?”

Sherlock paused. “Ah. I see. A game.”

“With a prize,” said Mycroft, and turned to enter his own bedroom.

Mycroft had left a note on his desk. It took Sherlock five hours and thirty-four minutes to find the missing microscope, most of it taken up with a cipher involving references to scientific equipment in all of the books that Sherlock had received as birthday presents since he was six. Mycroft had obviously been monitoring his progress somehow, because when Sherlock showed up at the appointed place— the equipment shed at the northeast corner of the tennis courts, tucked away at the far end of the Holmes family estate— Mycroft was already there, microscope in hand.

Sherlock found himself mirroring Mycroft’s maniacal grin. He felt _good_ — his mind whirring along at the exact pace of the world around him, slipping perfectly into gear instead of revving uselessly against nothing. For all that Mycroft was condescending and irritating, Sherlock had yet to find anyone else who could make him feel like this.

“You liked that game, little brother.” Mycroft glanced down at— yes, he was definitely looking at the front of Sherlock’s trousers, where there was a conspicuous bulge.

Sherlock looked down, too. “Yes,” he said, “it’s started doing that, recently. When I have problems to solve, work to do.” He winced a little. “And at night, sometimes.”

Mycroft nodded sagely, with all the worldly experience of a sixteen-year-old. “I experienced the same, when I was your age,” he said, as if the age gap between him and Sherlock weren’t a measly two years. Still, Sherlock had to admit— although certainly not out loud— that Mycroft did know some things that he didn’t. 

“Would you like a hand with it?” Mycroft asked, and Sherlock just shrugged. Mycroft already knew him better than anybody else ever could. To both of them, the world had always appeared as being full of dull people with duller thoughts. Mycroft was the only one who made Sherlock feel like he might be part of it; that he might be just as stupid compared to Mycroft as everyone else was compared to him. There was no greater intimacy than that, and that was the only one he didn’t have a choice about. 

“Pull down your trousers,” said Mycroft, and Sherlock did. Sherlock stared at his own penis, jutting out in front of him, unused to seeing it like this in the light. Unhesitatingly, Mycroft took it in hand, and ran his thumb up the side. Sherlock gasped and nearly doubled over, like he was in pain but definitely _not_ in pain, because this was something new and decidedly different from his nighttime fumbling so far. 

Mycroft was squeezing something from a tube into his hand, and when he brought both of his hands together to grasp Sherlock’s cock they were slick and smooth and amazing. Sherlock felt his knees go weak and Mycroft murmured, “Put your hands on this table— there, wouldn’t want you collapsing on me, now” and so Sherlock rode out the rest of his brother’s attentions half bent over, supported by a table cluttered full of tennis equipment, with Mycroft eventually dropping to his knees between Sherlock’s legs. He alternated between rubbing both of his hands up the sides of Sherlock’s cock (good, good, so incredibly good Sherlock could barely believe he could feel that way) and pumping him up and down with one hand (also good, the best, how was every thing Mycroft was doing the most amazing thing he had ever felt?) 

Sherlock surprised himself when he came, hot and slick all over his brother’s hands, and collapsed onto his knees with his hands still braced on the table, panting and with his trousers still pooled around his ankles. 

Mycroft pulled a cloth out of his pocket and cleaned his hands off, his face betraying neither desire nor distaste. He couldn’t hide that he had grown hard, though, and Sherlock had a vague impression that this sort of thing was supposed to be mutual, so he said, “Do you want me to…?”

“I do,” said Mycroft, “but not until I’ve earned it.”

The next day, the moment he heard Mycroft leave for his riding lesson (Mummy’s idea of a useful summer pursuit, which Sherlock had managed to wriggle out of through sheer force of unpleasantness) Sherlock picked the lock on Mycroft’s door and surveyed his brother’s possessions. He had only to choose something of value to Mycroft, and then the game would begin. 

 

**London, 2012**

John stared out the window of the black limousine, listening to the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of Anthea’s fingers on her phone.

“Alright if I make a phone call?” He asked. “I was supposed to be on my way to work. I’ll have to call the clinic and let them know I’ll be late.” 

“They’re not expecting you today,” Anthea answered without looking up.

“Ah,” said John. “Only, they are, because they texted me last night and—“

Anthea shot him one of those looks, the one that basically shouted “you might as well just stop talking now,” so he did. He sighed and leaned back in the leather seat, settling into the comfortable familiarity of being borne along by Holmes-related forces that he was powerless to influence.

It had stopped particularly bothering him, this kidnapping business, although it would be much more efficient if Mycroft could just pick up the phone and fucking call him when he wanted to talk. Still, considering how much John put up with from Holmes the younger, he supposed it was only natural that the elder felt the need to inconvenience him too, every so often. 

Twenty minutes later, he was seriously reconsidering his permissive view of Holmes family antics. The car had taken him, not to an abandoned building or out-of-the-way cafe, but to Mycroft’s actual _house_ , which had been his first clue that something highly suspicious was going on. His next clue was when Anthea handed him a glass of water and an energy bar and said “eat and drink, please,” and then led him to the bathroom and stared pointedly at the door until he went in and used it, like he was a child about to embark on a goddamn road trip. 

Then, she led him to a room that seemed on his cursory inspection to be library containing a collection of old books that John suspected were worth more than the sum of all of his possessions, sat him down on a wooden chair set in the middle of the space, and tied him to it. 

“Uh, excuse me,” he said, trying to kick his brain from _it’s Mycroft, just don’t ask questions_ mode to _maybe now is a good time to start asking some fucking questions?_ mode, “what are you doing?”

She pulled gently on the knot she’d just tied around his wrists, pulled around his back, and said, “Too tight?”

John boggled for a moment and then managed to squeak out, as she got to work tying his feet to the chair legs, “I should say that any tension is indeed too tight, considering you’re _tying me to a fucking chair!_ Anthea—“

She cut him off by standing up and patting his cheek, calling out, “All done!” and then Mycroft padded into the room, whisper-quiet and elegant. He nodded to John, as if John had simply showed up for a quick social call, and Anthea took that as her cue to leave, fingers already back at her phone and her face blank, like she had already turned her attention to her next task, which she probably had. 

“I apologize for having Anthea do the dirty work on this one,” said Mycroft, not looking sorry at all. “But— you do know how jealous Sherlock can get.”

“Jealous?” was all John could say. 

“Mmm, yes,” was Mycroft’s answer, looking down appraisingly at John. “Still. Never let it be said that I don’t do nice things for my little brother. I wouldn’t expect him to be more than twenty minutes, now. But just in case, Anthea has provided you with refreshments and a chance to freshen up?”

John just nodded mutely. 

Mycroft’s mouth curled into his weird approximation of a friendly smile. “Well then, I must be off. Low-level governmental drudgery awaits.” He tapped his stupid ubiquitous umbrella twice on the ground, and then strode away. After a few moments, John heard the purr of the limousine starting outside and pulling out of the long driveway. 

John listened, wondering if there were any servants or something who might still be in the house. After the fashion of big, old houses, it was full of sounds— clocks ticking, curtains rustling, wood creaking softly as the place settled more fully into the ground— but he didn’t hear anything that could be categorized as human until thirteen minutes later— Mycroft had, obviously on purpose, left a clock visible from where he was tied— when John heard the distinctive rattling sound of lockpicks being inserted and calibrated, then the lock to the front door clicking open. 

Sherlock— John was sure it was Sherlock, could recognize Sherlock’s gait coming up a flight of stairs nearly as well as Sherlock could recognize his— bounded into the room, panting. “Time?” he said. “How much time did he give me?”

John barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “He guessed you’d be twenty minutes.”

“And?”

John couldn’t prevent it any more, rolling his eyes and throwing his head back to indicate as much exasperation as possible with no free limbs, as he said, “thirteen.”

Sherlock balled his fists in victory, then drew up straight and looked at John in earnest for the first time. He took a step back, then started slowly walking around the chair John was tied to, inspecting him from every angle. John felt suddenly self-conscious, wondering what Sherlock was seeing in the knot at his wrists or the dirt on his trousers. 

“Both lure and prize,” Sherlock murmured. “I was right. Oh, _brilliant._ ” He sounded breathless, but now no longer due to his racing up the stairs.

“Yeah— d’you think you could untie me, Sherlock?” John said over his left shoulder, aiming for authoritative but only landing somewhere in the vicinity of wheedling. He could feel Sherlock’s gaze hot on his back, and a long fingertip brush over the point on his wrists where they were tied together. He shivered. “Or at least explain what’s going on?”

Sherlock came back around to his front and kneeled in front of him. “Oh, I would be happy to,” he said. “That’s half the fun.” He placed his hands on John’s knees, and, despite being tied up under extremely bizarre circumstances in Mycroft Holmes’ frankly ostentatious library, John couldn’t help but lean subtly into Sherlock’s touch. _Jesus,_ he thought to himself, _not now._

“Last night,” said Sherlock, “you put in a load of laundry around 10 PM, shortly after receiving a text message. Obviously, it must have been a request for you to pick up an emergency shift at the clinic— why else would a text suddenly precipitate a need for clean work clothes by the next morning? This morning you dressed and drank the espresso that you favour over coffee on clinic days to cut down on bathroom breaks, confirming that you were indeed going to work. However— you left at 9 o’clock, instead of your usual 8:30. The clinic opens at 9:30, the walk takes half an hour, and you’re always there half an hour in advance to prepare for the day. Why on earth would your shift be different by a mere half hour? There was only one solution; this was a message to me.”

John pursed his lips. “Okay, that’s the only solution that would occur to an incredibly vain and self-absorbed person, but since it turned out to be correct, I’ll give it to you.”

Sherlock’s face was flushed, and he rushed on: “I called the clinic, posing as a patient asking for you by name. Sure enough, they confirmed that you weren’t supposed to be working that day. Then, it was a simple matter to trace your usual route to walk to the clinic, and charm the security guards at various buildings along the route into showing me the footage of you walking past. Sure enough, the third intersection I tried showed you being stopped by, then entering, a black limousine which could only belong to one person.” 

Sherlock looked triumphant, almost high on the feeling of explaining his chain of reasoning to someone who could compliment him on it. Okay— John. he only really looked that way at John, nowadays. Not-so-coincidentally, John could usually be counted on to deliver a compliment. 

John knew it was silly, but even after all this time with Sherlock, he was still impressed despite himself. 

This time, though, he said, “Yeah, okay, well done, but _why?_ ”

Sherlock took a deep breath, and his manner changed from triumphant to hesitant. “When Mycroft and I were young teenagers, we used to play a game,” he said. “One would steal a possession that had value to the other. Upon recapture of the item, they would receive… a prize.”

“A prize?” said John slowly.

Sherlock shrugged a little and his mouth set. “We were teen boys, yet we existed on a plane apart from other children. It’s not as if we had any other little… girls, or boys… to experiment with sexually.”

Sherlock’s long fingers curled a little on his thighs, tense. John could feel Sherlock trying to read him, in exactly the same way that he did whenever he said something completely tone-deaf at a crime scene and needed to look at John to try to figure out why all of the DIs were staring at him. 

John had no idea what he might be telegraphing on his face, but the image of Sherlock and Mycroft, wanking each other in the dorm room of some posh public school in fulfillment of basically every expectation and fantasy John had ever had about such institutions, was crowding out the ability to really care what Sherlock might be reading from him. 

He was suddenly very conscious of his dick straining against his trousers, and Sherlock’s hands were still on his thighs, and he was still tied to a chair in the horrifically posh house of Sherlock’s brother, with whom Sherlock had… _god_ , okay. Okay. 

“Okay. Wow,” he croaked.

Sherlock seemed to be holding his breath. “You’re not—“

“Weirded out by you and Mycroft experimenting? Irritated at being lied to and _stolen_ like a _possession_ on my way to a work shift that never existed? Appalled at being tied to a chair and left as bait in a sex game, with the assumption that we’re now going to get each other off surrounded by millions of pounds worth of rare and out of print books?” John couldn’t move his hands or feet, but he managed to make a gesture that he hoped conveyed the impression of a desperate shrug. “God help me, but no.” 

Sherlock’s face always looked slightly odd on the rare occasion he actually smiled, like it wasn’t quite built for that expression, but John savoured it anyway. “Good,” he murmured, and unfolded his lanky frame to lean over John’s chair and start skimming his lips over his neck. John felt instantly desperate for him, and strained against his bonds, wanting to pull Sherlock closer. 

He could feel Sherlock’s erection against his belly now, and realized that Sherlock had probably been hard from the very moment John had left— half an hour too late— this morning. He groaned at the thought of Sherlock pacing around the apartment, hard; Sherlock calling the clinic while stroking himself absently through his dressing-gown; Sherlock effortlessly charming his way into CCTV footage all while shifting his cock uncomfortably underneath his clothing. All at the knowledge that he was probably going to find John here, like this. He couldn’t touch Sherlock, of course, but he wriggled his own length against the cleft of Sherlock’s ass and was rewarded by a sharp suck on his neck. 

He groaned. “You’re going to leave marks.”

Sherlock did it again, just off the centre of his throat, and harder, until the sensation just barely crossed over the line from good-pain to not-good-pain and then back again as he let go, admiring the welt forming on John’s skin. 

“You’re mine,” Sherlock growled, “My possession which Mycroft stole and I got back. I’ll mark you if I want to.” He paused deliberately, appraising John again, leaving him time to object.

John just moaned and ground up against Sherlock again. Sherlock practically jumped out of John’s lap and awkwardly yanked John’s trousers down, manoeuvring them around the curve of his hips as John tried to lift himself up from the seat of the chair as much as possible. Sherlock could have offered to untie him, of course, but he wasn’t asking any more. 

“Aren’t you the one supposed to be rewarded for your brilliant solve?” John asked breathlessly, as Sherlock yanked his trousers and pants down his legs to pool and this ankles where they were tied to the chair. He felt the cool of the wood beneath his bare ass and squirmed.

Sherlock hovered his face in front of John’s crotch, his breath hot and wet on his cock. “What makes you think I’m not?”

John’s hips strained forwards involuntarily, reaching towards Sherlock’s soft wet lips and hard sharp eyes, focused on John’s length like he was evidence in a fascinating case. “ _Ugh_ , he moaned, “Sherlock, _please._ ”

Sherlock leaned forward and gently licked the tiny bead of pre-cum of the head of John’s cock, sitting back to fucking _savour_ it like it was fine wine, Christ. “Sherlock,” he growled again, “Do you think I’ve been tortured enough for one day?”

Sherlock grasped John’s balls and finally, _finally_ , prepared to take him in his mouth. “I could use a few more hours of this, myself,” he said, “but I suppose Mycroft will want his library back at some point.” He drew John’s cock into his mouth and began swirling his tongue around, eyes flicking up to John’s face to gauge his reaction. John had no idea how that could possibly help him because he loved _all_ of it, loved it so much he was glad to have the restraints at his wrists and ankles to prevent him from grabbing Sherlock’s head and fucking down his throat.

Sherlock started sucking him faster and John could feel himself getting close, and Sherlock started taking his mouth off of John every few strokes to talk to him: “This”— stroke— “is how I like you”— obscene licks—“Desperate”— stroke— “helpless”— stroke”—“ _mine._ ”

John exploded, wrists and ankles straining at the ropes hard enough that he could feel them coming looser, and he forced himself to ease up on them as he rode through the orgasm because he didn’t actually want them to come untied, not really. He could feel his eyes growing wider and his toes curling as he watched Sherlock swallow his come and then lick his cock clean. He wished he could get hard again right now, God. 

Instead, he had something in mind for Sherlock. 

“Untie me,” he said, and Sherlock did, finally, delicate fingers expertly pulling apart Anthea’s complex knots. John had strained enough against them that he had nearly lost circulation in his hands, and Sherlock examined the red welts on his wrists and rubbed at them absently until John could feel his fingers again. 

“Stand against the wall,” he said, and Sherlock did, nearly tripping in his haste to find the one piece of bare wall not covered by bookshelves or expensive trinkets, and sending several volumes flying in the process. 

John kicked aside a probably-first-edition Winwood Reade and made his way over to Sherlock shakily on sore ankles, standing in front of him and meeting his gaze. 

“Sherlock Holmes, you are brilliant,” he whispered, beginning to trail his hands down Sherlock’s chest and into the waistband of his trousers. “You are brilliant and beautiful and vain, God, you can’t get enough of yourself, and that gets me hot too.” he dropped to his knees to expose Sherlock’s cock and immediately dipped in to lap at it. He heard Sherlock’s head thud against the wall above him.

John took Sherlock’s hands, balled into fists by his sides, and carefully placed them on his own head. “You earned me,” he said. “Take me.”

Sherlock started slow, staring down in what could only be incredulity, that he could hardly believe his luck to have John beneath him begging for Sherlock to fuck into his mouth. John was decent at this— Sherlock wasn’t his first time with a bloke, not really, and anyway, he was, well, motivated. He managed to avoid gagging for long enough that Sherlock started pushing at his head more forcefully, making what John was sure were entirely unconscious grunting noises as he pushed his cock into John and John into his cock and oh, John would keep doing whatever it took, for as long as it took, just to keep hearing Sherlock make those sounds. 

Sherlock came when he was far enough down John’s throat that he barely tasted it, only noticed that Sherlock’s hands were tightening in his hair to the point of pain and he was holding him still. Finally, he felt Sherlock’s hands loosen and start to caress his head instead, and Sherlock slid down the wall to sit in front of John and stare at him with something very like awe.

John wiped his mouth. “When d’you think Mycroft is getting back?” he asked. 

Sherlock shrugged. “Not any time soon, in all likelihood. But even if he were to walk in right now, it’s not like he’d be shocked to see us in this state.” He looked at John with the naked, hungry curiosity that was simultaneously his worst and best feature. “You really aren’t… disturbed, by our history?”

John laughed. “Sherlock,” he said, “I am alternately disturbed and fascinated by everything about you. But if you’re asking if it changes anything between us…” he curled a hand around one of Sherlock’s. “I’m not leaving. I’m yours.”

Sherlock’s hand curled back over John’s, possessive. “Good.”


End file.
